Chris Hill and I had a little conversation on the side about techniques
for sexing a bird just from a blood sample. There probably is no way to
sex a Chestnut-collard Longspur with the fancy molecular-genetic methods,
starting with a DNA sample, but I'll bet a karyotype would work. We've
had students here doing karyotypes from their own blood samples, with
varying success, but it's not basically difficult; one student who was
very successful went to a local hospital and got advice from a technician
who does this all the time. There are so many scientifical-technical
types on Tweeters, I wonder if any of you do karyotyping routinely. If
so, it should be relatively easy for someone to get a vial of growth
medium, take it to the Fill and get a tiny blood sample with the help of
someone who's experienced at capturing and banding birds. I have no idea
what the chromosome set of a longspur looks like, but with some decent
spreads we should be able to match up the chromosomes and see if we have
all pairs (male) or two odd ones (female). Does anyone have the needed
expertise?

Burt Guttman guttmanb at elwha.evergreen.edu
The Evergreen State College Voice: 360-866-6000, x. 6755
Olympia, WA 98505 FAX: 360-866-6794